The Progress of Man from Advanced Commentary to Sophomoric Opinion

June 07, 2017

I've been an atheist all of my life, with two notable exceptions. One was a half-hearted attempt at Christianity in my teenage years, fueled by family and societal pressure (it didn't take), and the other was a full-blown conversion to Buddhism in the immediate wake of a trip to Thailand in 2004, about a month before the Boxing Day Tsunami. I still meditate and try to follow the most basic tenets of Buddhism (the first two years or so of this blog were devoted almost entirely to Buddhism, and I even spent some time as a Buddhist Monk in Taiwan and California), but I can't say I ever really believed the religion's supernatural claims. Meditation and, say, not killing people, for example, are great ways to help a person live a better life, but I felt like we could dispense with the preaching about past lives and magical dharma protectors. People in Buddhist lands who don't subscribe to any religious beliefs aren't given to persuasion by the crazy stories of the religious. If a Chinese monk tells a Chinese atheist that he'll be reincarnated as an ant for drinking beer, the atheist is likely to offer to buy the monk a beer.

In this country, people like me sit back and marvel at the Christians, who are completely engaged in a religious war with absolutely no one at all. They vow over and over to fight against those evil atheists, who've gotten prayer banned from schools. They'll tell you that the reason prayer was banned from public school is to avoid offending some faction or other of the non-Christian population.

They'll tell you how wrong it is that people can't say "Merry Christmas" anymore in this country, and that the reason we can't say it is to avoid offending the Muslims, or the Jews or the atheists or the scientists or specifically - and I've literally been told exactly this - Richard Dawkins.

You'll hear all about how people are telling Christians that they're not allowed to insert their religion into their everyday speech; they've all been told to keep God out of it. They'll tell you the culprits behind this one are the media, who they've dubbed "The Mainstream Media", and who, in collusion with the secret cabal of America's anti-Christian educators and university administrators, have succeeded in brainwashing entire generations of Americans into hating the baby Jesus - and it's exactly these bad people we're not allowed to offend by talking about God.

But here's the thing. Prayer has NEVER been banned from public schools in America. In fact, the Supreme Court has again and again upheld the right of students to pray however they want to in schools and everywhere else. According to the Constitution, though, the government (which is who runs public schools) cannot do anything toward the establishment of a state religion, and therefore cannot facilitate, mandate, or take part in any kind of religious activity, which includes prayer. The kids can do it, the school can't. So the Christians are fighting against something that never happened?

Saying "Merry Christmas" has never been banned by any locality in the US, ever. At no time in the US has there been a law against anyone saying "Merry Christmas". Hell, I say it, and I'm an atheist. Now, a private employer might not agree with it and might therefore require his employees to say something else, like "Happy Holidays." That might happen, but it's a little bit of a stretch to claim persecution because of that, isn't it? Doesn't he have the same rights as everyone else? Besides, an employer making a rule for his employees to follow isn't exactly the same thing as a ban. So, the Christians are fighting against something that never happened?

Next up is the idea that Christians are unfairly being required to "keep God out of it," or in other words, they're being told that the rest of us might not want to hear it - which is entirely true, but there are strict federal guidelines for when someone, say and employer, can say that and when he can't. And when those guidelines are followed to the letter, the Christian loses that argument. We all just have to accept that there are times when our own personal belief systems are appropriate fare for discussion and there are time when they're not. But even when inappropriate, that's hardly a ban or anything approaching anti-Christian persecution, and it's almost never about fear of "offending" anyone.

I've heard a lot in recent years about how Christians are being persecuted in this country, about how hard it is to be a Christian, because the world is against them - which is why the world tells them to keep their religion "out of it." But the reality is that the idea of American Christians being persecuted for their Christianity is a complete myth, and can be demonstrated easily.

Seven out of every ten Americans is a Christians. Add the Jews and call it Judeo-Christianity, and you're closer to nine in ten. Every president, vice-president, speaker of the house, chairman of the joint chiefs, and chief justice of the supreme court, from George Washington to Donald Trump, has been either a Christian or a Jew. In my state (Texas), it's literally illegal to run for elected office without first "acknowledging the existence of a supreme being". Hardly an environment in which Christians are being persecuted, is it?

But none of this is how the Founding Fathers wrote it. Of course, the United States isn’t mentioned in the Bible, although I’m sure there could be some version of the Bible that was written in more modern times. But also, it’s worth noting here that the Constitution doesn’t mention God.

And don’t fall for the religious nonsense that the constitution is just a continuation of the Declaration of Independence, which does mention a “Creator”. The drafter of that document, one Thomas Jefferson, was an admirer of Enlightenment political principles, and he wrote the Declaration as an Enlightenment document, not a faith-based one. Don’t swallow the bullshit. Not only is the Christian religion not an American phenomenon, but America isn’t – and never was – a Christian nation.

So let's just ponder that for a moment, and remember it the next time someone claims that Starbucks changed the color of their cups as part of a War on Christmas (or Christians, or Christ, or God). In a future post, I'll discuss the difference between your RELIGIOUS LIBERTY being violated, and you just not being allowed to persecute others who don't agree with you - So stay tuned for that.

June 02, 2017

I don't have the answer. Obviously, Paris and Pittsburgh both live on the same Earth - but is that the real matter here?

Bottom line, I need to read the text of the Paris Climate Accord. If it's really harmful to American businesses as the Trumpers claim, then I'm all for withdrawal. I would consider that a paramount responsibility for any American politician.

I do know that international climate agreements like Kyoto - and by extension possibly Paris - are typically used by the international community as vessels by which to reduce American and British industrial and business power. Any agreement that places any type of foreign power or foreign restriction on US manufacturing, for example, isn't something an American president should sign on to for any reason. IF that's what's going on here, then the climate will be less affected by the US pulling out of the Paris agreement than American businesses would be by the US staying in.

But I haven't read the text of the Paris agreement yet, so I cant judge with any certainty. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I'll try to read the text and consult with my more business-minded friends about the whole thing, and I'll try to get back here with my verdict on Trump's decision.

April 13, 2017

The Bible is, at its core, a false historical text. The trouble with that is, you can’t (very often) disprove something in history. Christians will often challenge atheists to “disprove” some biblical story. They’ll say, “You can’t prove it didn’t happen.”

I also can’t prove that the British Isles weren’t created by Norse ice giants. But that’s not how it works.

The idea is to prove the opposite. In court, an accused man doesn’t prove he wasn’t at the scene of the crime; he proves that he was somewhere else at the time. Geologists have shown definitively how the British Isles were formed, and it wasn’t Norse ice giants. Likewise, many biblical stories have been debunked, not by direct “disproof,” but by showing the world how said story’s opposite is true.

The example I use most often is Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel. This is the story of how different languages happened. Of course, God did it.

See, in this story, all the people of the earth spoke the same language, and they came together in one place and tried to build a tower to reach “to the heavens,” in order to “make a name for ourselves.”

But God came down to see the tower, and decided that if they could do that, nothing would ever be impossible for them, and therefore he decided to “confuse their tongues” so they’d speak different languages, and then he scattered them all over the earth.

Confronted with the idea that this ridiculous story might not be true, a Christian will say something like, “You can’t prove it’s not true.” The comes from the idea that the Bible is the true and final authority in all things, as taught by fundamentalist churches all over the United States.

But we know how languages develop (and are still developing). A linguist who specializes in linguistic development or in language patterns would be able to show the development any language’s most commonly used words or expressions. In English, I like to use the word “tea”.

It comes, originally, from China. The Chinese have, for at least seven thousand years, used the word 茶 cha for tea (which must be thorn in the side to those American young-earth Christians who think the world is only 6000 years old). But one can follow the progression of the word as it traveled west with the actual product into India, where cha became chai, and then into Persia, where chai became che or chei. چای

From Persia and the Arab Middle East, it moved into Asia Minor where it’s pronounced Çay. From there, it moved into Italy, where it’s pronounced tè, and then into France, where it’s thé. Of course, from France it’s just a quick channel hop to England, where we know it as tea.

Cha

Chai

Chei

Cay

Te

The

Tea

In this way, we can show not only the development of a single word, but the development of entire languages – in fact, we can show the development of every human language on earth. It happens through trade, through war, through migration, and more recently, through mass media. Languages borrow words from each other and assimilate whole passages. And more importantly, we can show how linguistic development is NOT a product of magical gods descending from the heavens to thwart the efforts of man. Instead of proving the biblical nonsense isn’t true, we’ve shown it to be nonsense by showing how its opposite is true – and this can be done to almost every biblical story, with little more than a rudimentary understanding of a few basic disciplines, beginning with history, mathematics, geology, geography, linguistics, astronomy and zoology.

As hard as we might try, we still have no proof - in fact, no credible evidence - for most biblical stories. And we certainly have no evidence that can stand against the strength of simple study, which is where we find that, while the Bible might be the "highest authority," in most (if not all) cases, the opposite is true.

April 02, 2017

With the regular season underway TOMORROW, and my beloved Astros expected to be real contenders this year, I thought I'd take a moment to recognize one of my all-time favorite players.

Morgan Ensberg, or "Big Mo," was our 3rd baseman in 04 and 05, when the team made its big World Series run. He didn't necessarily have big stats or record home runs or anything like that, but there was something about this guy.

Imagine this. Toronto Blue Jays are in town. Astros' three-game win streak is in jeopardy. I'm watching from just behind the center field bullpen. Bottom of the 9th, tied at three, with two men on and two outs. Closer Brad Lidge has uncharacteristically blown a two-run lead in the top of the ninth, and this might be the last chance. Mo steps up to the plate. Every Astros fan is on their feet. Near sellout crowd. Record year. Team came back from a 15-30 start to advance to the playoffs by clinching the Wild Card berth on the last day of the year, but all that hasn't happened yet. Tonight, the excitement is still building at the Maid, three hours into the game. No one has left. They stopped selling beer an hour ago, but no one cares. Everyone is watching Mo as he walks up. He's not a really big guy, kinda slumps his shoulders a little, might be mistaken for a lawyer or something when he's not in uniform.

Mo's left foot, the lead foot in a righty batting stance, slides to his left, kinda a little behind him - toward the Crawford Boxes, if you know the Maid. Not a lot, not very far, maybe nine or ten inches, drawing a line in the dirt away from the plate, and EVERYONE in the Maid sees it. Out in the cheap seats, we all kinda gasp and lean in. If he makes contact, one of us is going home with it. Someone yells, "There it is!"

Okay, that was me. I yelled it.

Some batters pick up their lead foot and step into the swing, but that's not what's happening here. Ensberg has opened up his stance, changing the geometry of the matchup. The pitcher saw one stance and pitched accordingly, but just as the ball leaves his hand, the batter's stance changes, and suddenly the pitcher wants that pitch back. He's been tricked into pitching a home-run fastball right into Ensberg's wheelhouse. If Ensberg makes good contact, it's at least a triple, at best a walk-off three-run homer. If he makes poor contact, he can still foul it off and leave the pitcher with no idea what to throw next.

Mo had a career .263 average with 110 home runs. Respectable numbers, maybe not a Hall of Fame career. But on this particular Saturday night in June, he crushed that ball into the Crawford Boxes with the kind of authority I'd have expected from Reggie Jackson in my youth, and I left my feet like Michael Jordan. The whole stadium was electric. Mo was celebrating as he rounded the bases. 35,000 total strangers shared a moment of rapture that left us giddy until morning. We didn't know it at the moment, but manager Phil "Scrap Iron" Garner had given Ensberg the green light on that 3-0 pitch, which was a little unconventional. The usual thing would've been to take that pitch in hopes of a bases-loading walk, in order to put serious pressure on the Blue Jays' closing pitcher. If that had happened - if Mo had taken a ball to make a walk, the bases would've been loaded for the next batter (Adam Everett, I think), and any solid hit would've scored a run and won the game. If Mo swings instead of taking, it's make-or-break. He either wins the game or ends the inning and gives the Blue Jays another chance.

The other thing we didn't know yet is that this was where the season really got started. This emphatic walk-off homer to seal a 6-3 victory and a 4-game win streak at home charged the team in a way that no one had seen coming in the rough opening weeks of the season. Before this series with the Blue Jays, the team was just trying to hold it together. But now, they were making a run for something big - or at least they were winning, building excitement, charging the Maid with lightning. They didn't know it yet, but they were only a few months away from bringing the World Series to Houston - due in large part to Morgan Ensberg's left foot.

March 29, 2017

Now that a few days have passed since the failure of the Republican “health care” bill that was intended to repeal and replace Obamacare, I think it’s safe to say that there’s a general mix of feelings about its failure.

On the one hand, I really wanted Obamacare gone. I mean, this is one of the very few points on which I agree with Trump: Obamacare is probably one of the worst pieces of legislature in American history, and it’s almost certainly the most un-American law we’ve seen passed in my lifetime. Through Obamacare, the federal government can not only require me to purchase a product from an insurance company and then fine me literally thousands of dollars if I don’t (which was later reduced to $600 for most people), but it can, in certain circumstances, dictate which doctor(s) I see and what kind(s) of treatment I can receive. And people are paying thousands of dollars for this, with three-thousand-dollar deductibles. The whole thing is a complete disaster.

Yes, Obamacare did bring medical insurance to about twenty thousand previously uninsured people, which is obviously a good thing. But it did it by raising the cost of my insurance beyond what I can pay, which in the end left me uninsured, and then it fined me for being uninsured - and it did this to many others, too. In this country, the government isn't supposed to simply get whatever it wants by flailing it out of the populace - especially when a clear majority of the American people opposed Obamacare in the first place.

When Obamacare first passed, there was open talk about taking up arms against the government. Although most of that talk was knee-jerk hyperbole, I think it’s easy to see why so many were upset at the federal government’s overreach. People were starting to bring their AR15s to political rallies, and it's not much of a stretch to assert that Obamacare had a lot to do with the election of Donald Trump, who promised outright to repeal and replace it immediately.

Unfortunately, there’s another side to this hundred-billion-dollar coin. The bill the Republicans came up with to replace Obamacare, the “American Health Care Act”, was a piece of shit. All we needed was to repeal the individual mandate, repeal the penalty for not being insured, and find a way to get premiums back down to where they were before Obamacare, which could have been done by establishing a ceiling, which can be adjusted by location and condition, etc. But without that individual mandate, that socialist shitball law that forces me to literally, outright pay for someone else’s wellbeing, the federal government couldn’t force the states to assure insurance coverage for the twenty million who got their insurance through Obamacare, so the whole replacement scheme fell apart. Millions of people would’ve lost their insurance coverage, and there was nothing in the bill that would’ve reduced insurance premiums. It dropped the individual mandate, but then there was no replacement mechanism to keep the insurance ecosystem alive.

In the end, the Republicans couldn’t get enough votes from their own party to justify bringing the bill to a floor vote, so they killed it. The bill they brought was an amateurish and incomplete mess, and it failed miserably.

Where do I stand on all this? There’s no way to be happy, either way. I sure didn’t want that Republican non-care bill to pass into law, but of course that means we’re stuck with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.

Eventually, I think the states will decide for themselves what kind of system they want, and the difference between the states will be like the difference between some countries. In places like Texas and Alaska, Obamacare will fail, because not enough people are paying enough into the system to support the system’s recipients. But in more socialist-leaning states like New York and California, the Robin Hood taxation systems already in place will keep the collectivist dream alive well beyond its useful life.

In the end, the American people are stuck in an Obama-induced minefield of political and socioeconomic mistakes. I don't think we'll ever go back to the system we had before the election of Barack Obama, and in many regards, we'll never be free of Obamacare. Like Social Security, it's a piece of socialist collectivism we'll be stuck with for generations, even after it's clear that it CAN'T work as advertised without being propped up by forced taxation. But this Republican attempt at repeal and replacement was a great way to just make it even worse.

March 27, 2017

There was a time when the guys we today call "operators" - Rangers, LRRPs, Snake-eaters, those guys - ONLY carried Randall knives. According to legend, if a guy told you he was a Green Beret, there were four things he carried that would positively identify him as such: a Rolex watch, Randolph sunglasses, a sapphire ring, and a Randall knife. I've never owned a sapphire ring or a Rolex watch, but I've owned several pairs of Randolphs, and I love a Randall knife. But there's a problem: a Randall Model 1 costs $390 and a Model 14 is $410, so I'm not buying any Randall knives any time soon. That's not to say they're not worth the money. In my opinion, Randall knives are works of art all by themselves. But, just like Gibson guitars, if you've priced yourself out of my range, I'll just move on to something more reasonable.

There are tons of more reasonable options for your prepping/survival/carry knives with every bit of the functionality of a more expensive knife, and here are some of my favorites. I don't presently own all of these, but of each of the following, I either own one now or have owned one in the past, or have used someone else's in the field.

FIRST RULE: BUY AMERICAN. There are rare exceptions to this, but I like to know my blades are made in the USA and not some cheap Chinese crap that's going to break the first time I use it. Some European makers are better in quality than the American makers, but they're also out of my price range. There is a viable way around this rule, though. Some American companies will manufacture their goods outside of the US, while continuing to use strict American quality control measures on a sturdy American product design. For example, many of SOG's folding knives and multi-tools are made or assembled in the USA, with the higher priced folders being made by G.Sakai in Seki, Japan. The fixed blade models that were originally made in Seki are now made in Taiwan. According to SOG Knives Collectors, the Seal Pup listed below is one of the fixed-blade models that were once made in Japan but are now made in Taiwan. Bear, Case, Benchmade, ESEE, Emerson, Kershaw, and Ontario also have strong USA-made product lines, and these guys aren't on my list ONLY because I don't have a lot of personal experience with them. I am interested in several Emerson and Ontario products, though, so I may add them to the list in future updates.

SECOND RULE: MAJOR MAKERS ONLY. Again, there are exceptions, but I'm looking for Buck, Gerber, and SOG, almost exclusively. I generally recommend against buying knives that are stamped with the name and logo of a gun manufacturer, like Remington or Smith & Wesson. They are invariably made by someone else, and almost always in China to Chinese standards. The gun maker's name on the blade is nothing more than marketing.

THIRD RULE: IGNORE THE FIRST AND SECOND RULES. In most instances, it doesn't matter if your pocket knife was made by the Xinhiao Manufacturing Concern somewhere in China. Most people will never do anything with a pocket knife that will require made-in-America military ruggedness. I've never - not even in combat - broken a folding knife. I even own a "Smith & Wesson" folder, made by Taylor Cutlery, probably in China, and I've never had any issues with it. Just for fun, I'll include it in Part 2, as it's not a bad little folder.So, without further whatever, here's Part 1 of my list of favorite knives:

Buck NighthawkA solid, heavy, full-tang fixed-blade pigsticker with military quality fit and finish. This knife is perfectly balanced and features a thick, robust blade that would be perfect in a survival situation, for camping or whatever field work. The green part is like a hard rubber, and while this makes the knife heavier, I think it's overall my favorite knife mainly because of the grip. I can't imagine any situation wherein I'd lose purchase on this thing while hacking or batoning or whatever.

Buck Special / Buck General The Special has a 6" blade, while the General has an 8" blade. At first glance you might be tempted to declare this knife too shiny for military-style use, but I carried the longer version of this knife (the General) on my kit for at least three of my Airborne Infantry years. It was necessary to cover the super-shiny pommel with 100-mile-an-hour tape, though. An excellent field knife, this thing held its edge so well that I don't remember EVER sharpening it during that whole time. The current sheath isn't as robust as the one that came with it back then, but I like to replace my sheaths anyway. I wish I knew what happened to my General, but they're easily replaced. The Special runs about $50 and the General about $80 online (Buck no longer sells the General, but it's still available). Buck also sells a smaller version, which they've named "Pathfinder", for around $45.

SOG Seal Pup Presumably, this knife was designed as a smaller brother to the SOG Seal 2000, which is...um...bigger. It's the lightest fixed-blade in my collection, and has what I think is a waterproof coating on the blade. The grip is made of a kind of plastic resin (maybe?), which weighs virtually nothing. In fact, I think the sheath is heavier than the knife. Also, this is easily the sharpest knife I've ever owned, right out of the box. The Seal Pup I own right now is my second one (gave the first to a friend), and I will probably buy another at some point. They usually go for $70 to $80.

The Ka-BarNot much introduction needed here, right? The Ka-Bar is the Marine Corps' famous fighting knife, issued from 1943 to present. Its leather washer grip and the simplicity of its construction make it one of the most iconic American knives ever, as well as one of the most functional.

The Air Force Survival KnifeThis knife was iconic in the 70s and 80s as the knife issued to Air Force pilots when there was a reasonable expectation of being shot down. It is ridiculously well balanced and easy to use in all situations, and features the same kind of non-slip stacked leather washer grip made famous by the Ka-Bar.

The Gerber Mark IIThis is another iconic fighting knife. Available with or without the serrations, the original wasp-waisted design dates back to 1966 and was influenced by the British Sykes-Fairbairn fighting knife of the second world war.

There will be more. I'm not even halfway through my list of favorite knives, and I haven't even started on the folders yet. Watch this space for Part 2.

February 11, 2017

This is Lieutenant General (retired) Harold "Hal" Moore. This picture was taken when he was a Major General and the Commanding General of the 7th Infantry Division (Light). As a Lieutenant Colonel, Hal Moore commanded the famous 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Ia Drang on November 14, 1965, which was the first major force-on-force engagement between the forces of North Vietnam and the United States. His 1992 book, "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young" (written with reporter Joe Galloway, who was also present at the battle) was required reading for those in leadership positions in my Airborne Infantry unit a few years after it was published. I read it several times myself before the movie came out, wherein Mel Gibson played Moore.

This man is a legend among professional soldiers, and has been a personal hero of mine since my Army days. He died yesterday, Feb. 10, 2017, aged 94 years. The cliche "they don't make 'em like that any more" isn't so cliche here, and I'm reminded of a line from Hamlet, Act 1, I think Scene 2: He was a man. Take him for all and all. I shall not look upon his like again.

December 23, 2016

One of the things that I think have changed in the last 20 years is how we (I, anyway) define even the basic questions. What used to be a tug-of-war between liberal and conservative has become more of a struggle between smarter solutions and less-smart statements of belief.

I wrote to Senator Cornyn recently about what they're calling a "First Amendment Protection Act", which would give Christians the right to discriminate against LGBT people - essentially a reversal of recent progress in that area. What I got in response was a simple (although three paragraphs long) statement of how the senator "believes" this and "believes" that.

It's not just Senator Cornyn, either. I've been writing lately that America has a belief problem, and this is an example of that.

None of this is about what you believe. None of it. Nobody really cares what you believe. You just can't use it to hurt others. When I was in the sixth grade, I was taught that I'm perfectly within my rights to shadowbox. If you don't know, this is what boxers are doing just before a fight, when they punch at the air in front of them as though there was someone there, either in practice for throwing real punches or just to get the blood flowing and get their arms and hands limbered up. As kids, we'd do it because we thought it looked cool. I actually never did it, but that wasn't important to the lesson.

Anyway, we were taught that we had an unwritten right to shadowbox all we wanted, but that right specifically stopped at the moment when it became a menace to someone else. What that means is, you can throw punches all day long, but your right to throw punches stops at actually punching someone. My right stops at someone else's nose.

Today, we have a country that's overrun with people who think that their beliefs are somehow sacrosanct, to the extent that they're allowed to hurt whoever they want with them. But your beliefs are like those punches. Believe whatever fucked-up nonsense you will, but stop using those beliefs as an excuse to hurt others. If these people are successful in taking away marriage equality based on sexual orientation, they will have used their religious belief to cause irreparable harm to a generation of LGBT people.

Let's hope the number of shadowboxers in Congress who are interested in smart solutions outweighs those who are just looking for opportunities to justify their harmful haymakers with statements of belief.

December 15, 2016

A while back, two young Mormon missionaries stood at my front door; two very nice young Elders who'd stopped by to check on the previous occupant of my apartment, who evidently was a member of their church. Upon meeting me, they asked about my religious beliefs, and when I told them I'm an atheist, they politely informed me that I can't disprove God.

My answer to the "you can't disprove God" argument is this: Back up a step. We haven't gotten there yet.

See, there's a process. Disproving something before you've ascertained whether there's sufficient reason to even follow the process would render the whole thing - even the disproof - meaningless. The first step in the process is to ask the basic question. In this case, the question is this: Does God exist?

Next, we do some background research,and this is where we run into a little snag. If one wishes to support the eventual hypothesis that God does in fact exist, one is in trouble, because we find NO physical supporting evidence to support that hypothesis. The closest thing we can find to actual evidence of the existence of God is hearsay and feelings, as in, "I know God is real because I feel him in my heart."

And in the complete lack of physical evidence, are we justified in even continuing with the process? I say no. Anything beyond this point is pretending. We cannot support processing even to the stage of creating a hypothesis, much less conducting experiments to ascertain whether we have proof or "disproof" of that hypothesis. Not only do we not find evidence to support the existence of God, but we don't even find enough evidence to justify concerning ourselves with it.

December 03, 2016

Well, actually I could. See, it's no secret that I'm not a huge Trump fan, or at least I wasn't during the campaign. He was a boorish ignoramus during the campaign, who inundated the American public with ignorance, bigotry, xenophobia and mysogeny from the first day of his campaign to the last. He said things that were outright racist, sexist, and even insensitive to people with disabilities. He said things - and repeated them over and over - that showed his complete ignorance of current world affairs, foreign relations, foreign and domestic policy, military strategy and military use policy. He proved over and over again that he wasn't even interested in learning about these things, in taking the time to study these important subjects at all.

But now that he's about to be President, I want to stand behind him. I've been yearning for a president I could support for a long time. I never thought it would be this boorish imbicile, this moronic, jerky troglodyte, but someone. And if it has to be Trump, then I guess it's Trump.

Something Tom Hanks said stuck with me (quote might not be exact): "I hope he does such a great job that in four years I can't wait to vote for his re-election." While Trump is clearly a huckster and a con man, he has already done three immensely positive things, each with its own downside. First, he effectively retired Hillary Clinton, and rendered the Clinton political machine a relic of the past - the deep, dark, collectivist past. Second, his election avoided the mass hysteria of panic gun-buying we were guaranteed to see in the event of a Clinton victory, and virtually guaranteed our continued second-amendment protections for a few years. And third, we're starting to see how he'll work toward keeping American jobs in America.

I love his efforts to keep Carrier jobs in America. Obviously, there are pitfalls to having the government (meaning, the president) get directly involved in offering tax incentives to companies on a case-by-case basis, but if it's keeping jobs here, it has my support. If his involvement really does keep a thousand Americans employed, whose jobs would otherwise have gone to Mexico, then I don't care if he's promising tax incentives to the company. I've been on the losing side of a layoff - more times than I want to talk about - and I know what it's like when your hard work isn't enough to keep your job, when mismanagement and corporate profit incentive outrank you and overpower your ability to keep putting food on your table. If some grandstanding politician had stepped in to save my job at the last moment, I'd have voted for that politician. Period. He can grab all the pussies he wants.

Now, I'm reading that Sarah Palin might not like it, because it sets a precedent that doesn't sit comfortably with a lot of people on either side of the aisle. I like Sarah Palin (aside from her crazy-ass religion), and I completely understand her point here. Her concerns are mainly with the appearance of what they like to call "crony capitalism", which is a polite way of saying crooked politicians, helping out their corporate buddies. As it's being reported, the Carrier Corporation is due to receive fat tax incentives and other benefits from this deal. Remember, though, that Palin herself has been accused of crony capitalism, after a freeway bridge contract award in Alaska that went to someone in her family's inner circle, or some shit. I was always sure that the charge against her was bullshit - just more political attacks from the left, against an immensely popular governor - and I'd imagine that she'd be reticent to just throw that kind of accusation at Trump in this case.

Politically, though, she may have a point. For me, it's all a whitewash anyway. A thousand people keep their jobs - that beats anything anyone can throw at it. A thousand families who get to buy unnecessary shit for their kids this Christmas because they're not going on Unemployment. Trump didn't save every job at the plant, and some people will still be laid off, but this is a success, and it's a yuge step in the right direction.